NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover on August 5, 2015.
Picture: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Software program updates could be tough at the perfect of occasions. Now, think about updating legacy know-how on a tool that is tens of millions of miles away in area. That was the dimensions of the problem dealing with IT professionals at NASA.
Greater than 10 years in the past, NASA’s Curiosity Rover landed on Mars. At about the identical time, when you had been utilizing Home windows, you had been working Home windows 7. In laptop years, a decade is a really very long time. At the moment, the possibilities are that you just’re working Home windows 11. So, what working system is Curiosity utilizing? The reply is that it is nonetheless working Wind River’s VxWorks.
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VxWorks is a well-liked, real-time embedded OS. On Curiosity, it is working on a 200MHz RAD750 PowerPC microprocessor, which is the radiation-hardened model of the venerable 750 PowerPC chip. These chips had been final seen in Earth-based PCs akin to 1999’s Fruit Coloured Apple iMac G3 fashions.
So, why did NASA use such previous, sluggish chips? The reply is that they had been simpler to make use of in {hardware} that was constructed to withstand cosmic rays. The chips are backed with two gigabytes of flash reminiscence, 256 megabytes of random entry reminiscence, and 256 kilobytes of erasable programmable read-only reminiscence (EPROM).
Regardless of the {hardware}’s success, there’s nonetheless room for software program enhancements. Like most different folks, you have most likely upgraded your PC at the least thrice since 2012. However that is a luxurious NASA would not have. In spite of everything, there aren’t any PC restore folks in area.
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Now, after years of growth, a groundbreaking software program replace has been efficiently put in on Curiosity, which permits the Mars explorer to drive sooner and decrease put on on its wheels.
The replace, which concerned about 180 adjustments, necessitated a short pause in Curiosity’s scientific and imaging operations from April 3 to April 7. This newest patch was small: just below 22 MB. However, it is a full substitute for the sooner working system and the replace was uploaded in 51 information.
Importing the patch was a sluggish affair. At its absolute quickest, Curiosity can add at 256 Kbps. To offer some context, you most likely have not seen speeds that sluggish for the reason that final time you used a modem. Within the occasion, the add took 10 days. The precise set up took 4 days in April.
Then, after the whole lot had been checked out, Curiosity was lastly able to run its new working system. Its previous working system had been saved in reminiscence, so if something had gone fallacious, it would not have taken days to reboot it.
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The profitable rollout is a big achievement. The patch has been in planning since 2016, the final time Curiosity acquired a software program overhaul. Curiosity challenge supervisor Kathya Zamora-Garcia of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) defined the dimensions of the replace: “The flight software program is crucial to our mission, so this can be a large deal for our crew.”
The patch comes with a spread of enhancements, from minor changes in communication to extra environment friendly laptop code.
The most important distinction between the previous model of the software program and the brand new is that this replace permits Curiosity to carry out “pondering whereas driving” extra successfully, which is analogous to its youthful counterpart, Perseverance. The upgraded Curiosity can now course of photos extra quickly, enabling it to spend extra time in movement.
Jonathan Denison of JPL, Curiosity’s engineering operations crew chief, defined that whereas the rover will not match Perseverance’s velocity, there’s a efficiency boon: “Spending much less time idling between drive segments additionally means we use much less power every day.” He added that the virtually 11-year-old rover continues to undertake progressive methods to maximise its obtainable power for scientific actions.
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The replace additionally addresses the difficulty of wheel put on, which first emerged in 2013. The brand new software program introduces two mobility instructions that decrease the quantity of steering required, accelerating the rover’s progress and lowering put on on its wheels.
This breakthrough permits for a extra streamlined driving expertise for Curiosity’s human operators. That is an enormous change as Curiosity beforehand needed to cease for minutes between driving segments. Denison defined what this streamlined expertise means: “This may not let Curiosity drive as rapidly as Perseverance, however as an alternative of stopping for a full minute after a drive phase, we’re stopping for only a second or two.”
In fact, the most important information of all is that the patch was profitable. Nobody needs to troubleshoot a blue display of loss of life from 143 million miles away. Denison expressed reduction and satisfaction with the software program replace’s success, admitting: “The thought of hitting the set up button was a bit scary. Regardless of all our testing, we by no means know precisely what’s going to occur till the software program is up there.”